Page 74 of A Queen and HER Bad Boy (Spies and Royals #4)
Chapter Forty
B ris’s thrashing heartbeat crashed against her ears.
It was time to face down these reincarnated terrors from ancient myth.
Her cousin Aggie was as terrifying as Ares himself—marble-carved features housing a war god’s bloodlust, his flame-colored hair seeming to flicker like the fire that would consume their kingdom.
Next to him, in the confined space, Charisse looked as cold as Circe, her eyes glittering with the malice that had the power to reshape men into beasts. Together, they were a nightmare.
No, pure evil. Her body recoiled, but she forced herself to face them. She couldn’t let them win.
Eliminate the American ally. Her usefulness has expired. Gena will be your new bride.
The intercepted message burned in her memory, even as she roughly unfolded the crumpled paper with shaking fingers. She knew who the American was now.
“Aggie is planning to get rid of you, Charrisse. Your ‘usefulness has expired,’ honey. He’s going to kill you as soon as you reach your destination.”
The socialite’s manicured fingers trembled on her pistol until Bris was certain she was about to shoot the messenger.
“Read it yourself!” Bris cried. She desperately thrust the paper at her.
An elegant hand snatched it from her grasp. Aggie let out a shout, but instead of trying to reassure “his most beloved” of his love, he was lunging for Charisse’s weapon before she could learn the truth and use it on him.
Charisse shrieked like a banshee, and then they were grappling over the leather seats in the back, their bodies twisting in a deadly duel. Well, now Charisse believed Bris! Even while she began questioning her life choices. She’d started the Tirrojan equivalent of World War Three!
“Watch out!” Achilles threw himself protectively over Bris, his solid chest pressing against her shoulder, his familiar warmth surrounding her like armor against the chaos.
They could be on the world’s most dysfunctional double date.
Achilles’s hands found her shoulders, and reaching up, he pulled the safety harness across her chest, clicking it securely into place. “Seatbelt on, now!”
Fear choked against her throat. What was he about to do?
The rotors above them whined to life with a thunderous mechanical roar that vibrated through her bones. Achilles’s fingers left the collective lever as he engaged the engine. The Blackhawk helicopter shuddered beneath them like a beast awakening.
Peleus’s voice crackled over the radio again, this time sounding urgent: “Maintain position on the ground. Do you copy, Achilles? I don’t care who has a gun to your head! Airspace is not yet secure for departure.”
It was too late. The Blackhawk lurched into the air with violent force.
Bris cried out as her stomach dropped, the world tilting sickeningly beneath them.
The helicopter dipped and turned sharply, sending screams erupting from the back as Charisse and Aggie were thrown against the cabin walls.
The ancient coliseum spun below them in a dizzying blur of weathered stone and emerald olive groves, growing smaller and more distant with each passing second.
“Achilles! Son!” Peleus’s voice carried desperate urgency through the radio and was lost in the noise.
Bris clutched her harness, horrified to see that Achilles hadn’t secured his own seatbelt in his rush to protect her.
His body lurched against the pilot’s door as they plunged to the left.
His shoulder slammed into the metal frame.
She reached over, trying to catch the belt with her fingers.
“Get that on! Achilles! Please!” Her voice was lost under the deafening blades churning above them.
A voice returned over the radio—possibly O Skia’s—but just like before, his words were swallowed by the mechanical chaos surrounding them.
Bris ripped her gaze from the Aeaean’s landscape streaking past in ribbons of blue sea and green hills, whipping her head around just in time to see Aggie wrestle the pistol away from Charisse with a violent jerk that held absolutely no love.
If Charisse hadn’t accepted the truth of his betrayal before, his rough handling should show the heiress exactly who she was to him—a bank account and a prison break wrapped in designer pleather pants.
Letting out a growl, Aggie clawed through the seat to reach Bris at the front, sliding back then fighting his way forward through the Blackhawk’s violent pitching.
She watched him approach like she was caught on a carnival ride spinning out of control, too helpless to move, too helpless to fight back against Aggie’s manic strength fueled by the rage she saw blazing in his pale eyes.
She could only let out a scream that was muffled by the rotor’s blades, seconds before she felt the cold metal of the pistol’s barrel press against her temple.
“Steady the aircraft or she dies!” Aggie shouted above the noise.
He swung around to glare at his unhinged accomplice.
“Get Medes on the phone! Tell that assassin to finish the sister now. Finish her!”
Bris took a shuddering breath and screamed back, “You think Medes will take orders from you, Charisse? He’s tricking you!” She reached out, her fingers digging into the woman’s soft flawless arm. “She’s going to be Aggie’s bride. The Myrdons won’t touch her!”
Charisse’s face contorted with rage. Shrieking, she launched at Aggie again.
The pistol jerked upward, discharging into the helicopter’s ceiling with a deafening crack.
Sparks showered down on them. Another deafening shot punched through the instrument panel.
Glass exploded in a crystalline spray. Warning lights flickered and died.
Then a third shot—and Achilles slumped forward over the controls.
Bris screamed, her throat turning raw under her cries. Her fingers found his shoulders as his blood—hot and terrifyingly real—spread across his white shirt in an expanding crimson stain. His chest heaved as he struggled for breath.
Snatching her hand, he pressed her palm firmly against the control stick near his knee, his grip desperate and slick with blood as he guided her fingers around the cold metal. The stick vibrated under their joined hands. “The cyclic… keep level…”
Aggie was rage-screaming orders she couldn’t hear over the failing engines. Achilles fumbled for a headset beside him with trembling fingers. He managed to push it into Bris’s stomach. “Get my father… guide us.”
Bris’s hands shook as she threw on the headphones, adjusting the microphone with fingers that felt numb with terror. “O Skia? O Skia, are you there?”
“Bris? Is that you? Where’s Achilles?”
“He’s been… shot.” Her voice broke as she saw how pale his face had become, the olive tone draining to ashen gray. “I have to land us.”
“Is he alive?”
“Yes! But… we don’t have long.” She wasn’t sure how she said it, like she was reporting on the weather, when she wanted to scream and shake Achilles awake, but her hands were meant to keep them alive… at least for a few minutes longer.
“Listen carefully.” Peleus’s voice turned steely with military precision. “I’m going to talk you through this step by step.”
“Thank you,” she breathed.
“First, ease back on the cyclic—that’s the stick in front of you. Gentle pressure, just enough to level us out.”
“Yeah…” She wasn’t sure how she did it, her hands following his calm instructions as the helicopter steadied slightly.
“Now, I need you to reduce the collective—that’s the lever by your left knee. Lower it slowly, very slowly.”
Bris found the control, reducing that thing they called “the collective” to begin their descent. The aircraft shuddered like a wounded bird fighting to stay airborne.
“You’re doing beautifully. Now, keep the nose up slightly as we descend.”
She fought to keep the damaged aircraft stable. The helicopter shuddered and groaned as they approached a field beyond the olive groves. Emergency vehicles already raced toward their projected landing site like red and white ants across the green landscape.
Could she do this? Could she land it there? Her eyes swerved to Achilles, his breathing was getting shallow, she noticed it in the irregular rise and fall of his chest. A gasp escaped her, and a cry he wouldn’t be able to hear as grief and fear consumed her. He’d live! She’d make sure he did!
Behind them, Charisse and Aggie continued their vicious accusations. “You liar! You never loved me!” Charisse’s voice cracked with hysteria. “I gave up everything for you!”
“You gave up nothing!” Aggie snarled back. “You’re just daddy’s spoiled little rich girl playing at being dangerous!”
The Blackhawk touched ground with a bone-jarring impact that Bris felt in every vertebra of her spine.
They’d made it! Straightening, preparing for more danger, she whipped around.
A metallic clatter signaled where the pistol skittered across the cabin floor.
She lunged for it just as Aggie came at her like a rabid hydra, all flailing limbs and shrieks. His face twisted with murderous rage.
Squaring her shoulders, wincing at the coming impact, she pulled the trigger.
The shot echoed through the cabin. Aggie crumpled over the seat, crimson spreading across his shoulder.
Charisse’s screams reached a new octave of hysteria.
“What have you done?” She twisted to Aggie’s unmoving body.
“Get up, you useless coward! Wake up!” She whirled back toward Bris with wild eyes.
“You pathetic pretender!” Her hands went for Bris’s neck.
“I swear, you’ll never have the breath in you to love anyone—”
She stopped just short of her and shook like she’d been caught by a sudden seizure, and just as suddenly, flopped back against Aggie.
Achilles dropped the loose electrical wiring he’d wrenched from the damaged instrument panel. Blue sparks still danced from the exposed copper, showing what he’d done—improvised a taser from the helicopter’s own electrical system. His eyes closed.